Ask the coach: Running training over a holiday period

I am going to be away on a family holiday, and I won’t have much time to train – will I lose fitness?

Anna

Running coach answer: Running training over a holiday period

As the summer holidays come around, through June, July, and August, this is the most common question I get asked. It’s hard to answer, as all circumstances are different. The type of holiday—beach or active, with family or solo, long-haul, rough camping, all-inclusive hotel—and when your last and next target event is all have a bearing on it.

One of my runners is going on a swimming camp, and running can be tagged on where time and energy allow. Another is going to Kenya for a running camp experience in the Kenyan altitude camp at Iten. They will not be worrying about keeping fit while away. They may be coming home for a rest!

Indeed, most of my personal holidays involved running in some way. When I was chosen to run for England in the Commonwealth Games Marathon in Brisbane in 1982, I planned my two-week holiday to be in Greece in August (the Games were at the end of September) so I could be acclimatised to the likely weather conditions in Brisbane.

I ran 250 miles over the two-week holiday, including a 30-mile run (I got lost on my 20-miler!). I did no speed work, just lots of miles. I also finished every run trying to cool down in the sea. I drank gallons of water all day long, as well as eating a lot of pasta, pizza, and Greek salad with salty Feta Cheese.

I was highly motivated to train through my holiday.

In later years, my summer holiday was also based around escorting a group to the Swiss Alpine Marathon in July. I could run every morning, meet everyone at the front of the hotel at 8 am, hike with the group during the day, run the 30km mountain race on the last Saturday, and return home fitter than when I went out.

This is not everyone’s idea of a holiday, though, and for many, the needs of other family members are very important.

The first thing is not to fret – you will not lose much fitness, and your mental health will benefit greatly from the holiday, even if your fitness slips back a bit.

I would say, count out travel days for training anyway. You’ll be tired and most likely dehydrated. When you get to the resort, go for a walk and discover the delights of your holiday destination.

If you are able, get up early each day and do a short, but reasonably intense run before the family gets up. If it is only a short time gap, you must train in; make it pay by doing a threshold run for 20-30 minutes or a time-based fartlek/interval session, like 1 mile brisk, then 10×60 sec fast/60 sec slow. Then drink plenty of water, and go down to breakfast with everyone else, smug that you have done your run.

When I am planning a season’s programme for my runners, I always ask them if they have any holiday time booked (or even a long work travel period). This will go into the grid at the start of planning, along with the target races, so that the overall plan can take account of a down week or two during the holiday.

Usually, I frontload the weeks before the holiday and assume that there will be a greatly reduced amount of training during it. After the holiday, the runner can return to the usual schedule fairly quickly, refreshed by the break (this is different from returning from illness or injury when a slower return to full training is needed).

The good thing for most of the endurance runners I coach is that their target events tend to be from the end of September onwards, so the usual July/August holiday period is far enough away for training to be picked up to normal loads afterwards and before the race.

For the track-based runners, most have more or less finished the season before the peak holiday time, so the week or two away works well for downtime before winter base work starts.

Mike Gratton took the Bronze Medal at the 1982 Commonwealth Games Marathon in Brisbane, running a PB of 2.12.06 in hot, humid conditions.

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